Puerto Rico

#PRBrokenPromises

Read the final report in our yearlong investigation into the Puerto Rican Debt Crisis, its underlying causes, what it means for communities on the island and in the United States, and what we can do to fight back.

The Puerto RicanDebt Crisis

Puerto Rico is embroiled in a humanitarian crisis that is leading to a mass exodus from the island, with a planeload of people leaving with one-way tickets every day. Its unsustainable debt load, stagnating economy, astronomical cost of living, and high poverty rates have made it nearly impossible for many working families to remain on the island. Unfortunately, both the government of Puerto Rico and the US Congress have put the interests of bondholders ahead of residents by paving the way for harsh austerity measures to ensure that bondholders get paid. Our partners have written a series of reports exposing the Wall Street banks that targeted Puerto Rico with predatory and often illegal debt deals, the vulture hedge funds that are trying to profiteer off the crisis, and the public officials that are enabling this piracy.

The US Congress passed the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) in June 2016, which created a Fiscal Control Board to oversee the Commonwealth’s finances. But in order for it to do its job fairly, the Control Board must understand how Puerto Rico came to be so deeply indebted in the first place. The ReFund America Project has conducted a yearlong investigation of Puerto Rico’s debt, releasing a series of reports about the banks that targeted the Commonwealth with predatory, and sometimes illegal, debt deals.

Down the Wells

June 30, 2016Banks sold the Commonwealth capital appreciation bonds, which are the government version of a payday loan. Puerto Rico will pay $33.5 billion in interest on $4.3 billion of underlying debt. Click here to read the report.